Daily Archives: December 16, 2011

The Wildcat varsity basketball team notched its first win of the season on Saturday, December 10 with a home victory over Crescent City. The 51-37 victory doesn’t really speak to the domination of the Raiders.

BCHS was hitting from the outside and the Raiders weren’t able to counteract the hot shooting. Charles Ruise Jr. and Jesse Gardner were both nailing three pointers as BCHS ran out to a 14-4 lead in the early going.

The Cats continued to build on their lead in the second period, despite the fact that the Raiders’ top scorer David Curry kept Crescent City close. BCHS took a 27-15 lead into the locker room.

Both teams came out for the second half cold as ice with BCHS outscoring the Raiders 6-3. But the Cats woke up in the fourth period and Gardner hit two more long distance shots.

Ruise and Gardner shared top scoring honors for BCHS with 12 points each. Gardner’s all came on three-point shots. Johnny Lamb had 8 points. Curry had a game high 18 points for Crescent City.

“We think that when these young kids get some wind under their sails that they are going to shock some people,” said Ruise. “We’re hoping that this win will help us turn the corner.”

The Cats were not so fortunate earlier in the week when they lost to district rival Forrest 60-40 on the road December 8. Forrest had three players in double figures as it used a big first half to hold off a Wildcat run.

Westside and Macclenny Elementary Schools and the PreK-Kindergarten Center sponsored programs last Thursday to celebrate and pay tribute to local veterans who have served or are actively serving in the military.

The programs included music and recognition of past and present veterans.

According to Pre-K Center principal Bonnie Jones, this year’s salute to Veterans Day was a bit more ceremonious than in past years.

It was part due to special guest Winton Stokley. The 89-year-old Navy veteran from Macclenny was part of the Normandy Invasion in France in 1944 during World War II.

“He was there,” said Ms. Jones. “He flew over Normandy on D-Day.”

The children got into the spirit by making patriotic banners to celebrate the occasion and to welcome and thank veterans for their service. Particularly striking was a special three-dimensional flag.

Children traced their hands on colored construction paper, then cut out the shapes with scissors. The cutouts were used to create the red and white stripes and the blue field with stars. The curled fingers of the cutouts gave the impression of movement, as if the flag were waving in the breeze.

Several people, two of them involved as organizers, commented the past week that no one seems to know about the upcoming Sesquicentennial Celebration on September 24.

Maybe that’s because so few of us attempt to pronounce the word (Cess-kwa-centennial) and thus have pushed the one-day event back in the nether regions of our consciousness.

No, it’s not a celebration of some primitive era when the dinosaurs roamed. It means Baker County is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding in April, 1861, a month when there wasn’t much going on — except, oh, for the shelling of Fort Sumter and the start of the Civil War.

Talk about being overshadowed by events. It’s on par with choosing December 7, 1941 (or 9/11 for that matter) as your wedding day.